Starting today the JMM is going to be all ice cream all the time…well maybe not all the time, but we are celebrating the 100th anniversary of Hendler’s Creamery with no less than three programs. Though not in business anymore, many Baltimoreans recall Hendler’s innumerable flavors with fondness. The old factory still stands on Baltimore Street within sight of the Lloyd Street Synagogue, and I have spotted vintage Hendler’s signs in restaurants around Baltimore.

Hendler's sign from our collection. 1987.102.1

So to celebrate Hendler’s Creamery we’re going to be dishing out a lot of ice cream.

Tonight come out to our first Late Night at Lloyd Street for our extended museum hours and ice cream making.

Then enjoy:

Hendler’s Creamery Centennial Ice Cream Social

Wednesday, July 11th 1:30 – 3pm

Hendler’s Creamery is turning 100! In honor of the country’s first fully automated ice cream factory, the JMM invites you to an ice cream social – Hendler’s style. Take a guided tour of our current exhibit, Chosen Food. Then make your own ice cream and enjoy eating it in the JMM’s Rose-Sagalnick board room – once the office of L. Manuel Hendler, president of Hendler’s.

Celebrate the delicious treats of summer with an afternoon ice cream social for the whole family. Discover the history of Hendler’s Creamery, the Baltimore-based ice cream factory, while learning how to make your own (and eat the results!)

Sunday, July 22, 2012

12 – 4pm

$10 per family (for JMM members)

$15 per family (for non-members)

Hendler Creamery Co. billboard, 1923. 1998.47.7.18

Aside from sampling ice cream, you’ll also get to see a little bit about Hendler’s Creamery based on the collections here at the JMM. What does the JMM have about this business? Quite a lot actually.

Hendler Collection

n.d., 1905-1985

MS 147

The Jewish Museum of Maryland

Access and Provenance

The Hendler Collection material was donated to the Jewish Museum of Maryland by Mr.& Mrs. Samuel Boltansky in 1996 as accession 1996.152, and by an anonymous donor in 1998 as accession 1998.47. The collection was processed in May 2005 by Myrna Siegel.

Access to the collection is unrestricted and is available to researchers at the JewishMuseumofMaryland. Researchers must obtain the written permission of the Jewish Museum of Maryland before publishing quotations from materials in the collection. Papers may be copied in accordance with the library’s usual procedures.

The Hendler Creamery Company began the business of manufacturing ice cream in 1905 under the name Miller & Hendler. The business was a partnership between Louis Miller and L. Manuel Hendler and was located in the basement of Miller’s residence at Gough and Eden Streets inBaltimore. Subsequently, the business was moved to a building onEden StreetnearBaltimore Streetand later toLloyd Street. The partnership was dissolved in February 1907 with Hendler purchasing Miller’s interest in the business.

Manuel Hendler continued running the business until 1912 when he organized and incorporated “The Hendler Creamery Company.” The corporation purchased and enlarged Mr. Hendler’s ice cream business. Shortly thereafter he purchased the former power house of the old Baltimore City Passenger Railway Company at Baltimore and East Streets. The new corporation set about equipping the building with the latest ice-cream manufacturing equipment.

Over the years, several machines were developed and patented in the new plant – the Hendler Scraper Grinder, a mechanism for keeping ice cream freezer scrapers sharp; the Hendler Brick Expeller and Slab Perforation which used compressed air to remove ice-cream bricks from a mold or slab; and the Hendler Fruit Hopper which allowed fruit or chocolate to be added to the ice-cream after the mix was frozen.

In 1926 the company was re-incorporated as the Hendler Creamery Company, Inc. In 1929, the Hendler Creamery Company was one of seven companies purchased by the Borden Company. L. Manuel Hendler and later, his son, Albert Hendler, became executives with the Borden Company.

Baltimore played a significant role in the ice cream industry, as it was the site of the founding of the first wholesale ice cream plant in 1851 by Mr. Jacob Fussell. To commemorate the centennial of that event, there was a large celebration inBaltimorein 1951 in which the Hendler Creamery Company and L. Manuel Hendler, chairman of the Ice Cream Industry’s National Centennial Committee, played a prominent role.

Hendlers Creamery Company ice cream advertisement truck. 1998.47.16.1

Scope and Content

The Hendler Collection is comprised of early records of the growth and development of the Hendler Ice Cream Company and records of its purchase by the Borden Company and its continuation as a division of that company. There are also records relating to the development of the ice cream industry and of the Ice Cream Centennial held inBaltimorein 1951 to celebrate the centennial of the founding of the wholesale ice cream industry. The final part of the Collection is comprised of records of the Hendler Family.

Series I. Hendler Creamery History, n.d., 1906-1975. The early history of the Hendler Creamery and its activities in theBaltimore ice cream industry are reasonably well documented. Of particular interest are, an early agreement of ice cream manufacturers to hire a lobbyist to lobby against the state setting a standard for butter fat content in ice cream, catalogs of ice cream equipment, information about improved equipment developed in the Hendler factory, and agreements with distributors and employees. Also included is information about litigation against the Hendler Company regarding its use of the trademark phrase “The Velvet Kind” for its ice cream. There are also copies of the regulations issued by the government in 1917 regarding rationing of commodities such as sugar; and the effect of that action on the ice cream industry.

Additionally, there is, what appears to be, a complete collection of copies of “The Dipper,” a pamphlet apparently distributed to retail ice cream outlets by the Sharpless- Hendler Ice Cream Company inMarylandand nearby states which provided tips on serving ice cream.

Subsequent to the purchase of the Hendler Creamery Company by the Borden Company there was protracted litigation regarding the tax treatment of the assumption of the Hendler Creamery Company’s bonded indebtedness by the Borden Company. The litigation concluded with an opinion by the United States Supreme Court in the Government’s favor. In 1939, a bill was adopted in the United States Congress to reverse the Supreme Court’s decision. This series includes documentation related to this legal action.

This series also includes handwritten and typed copies of an 1830 book on making ice cream.

Color illustration of an ice cream add. 1998.47.4.99

Series II. Ice Cream Industry, n.d., 1905-1951 deals primarily with the “Ice Cream Centennial” held inBaltimore in 1951. In addition to that material, of particular interest is a 1934 efficiency analysis of the Horn Ice Cream Co. plant inWilmington,Delaware, and a 1905 edition of “The Ice Cream Trade Journal.”

Series III. Hendler Family, n.d., 1918-1985 concerns the Hendler Family. There is information about the military career of Albert Hendler, the philanthropic activities of both L. Manuel Hendler and Albert Hendler, and the artistic achievements of Winifred Hendler, the wife of Albert Hendler.
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Hey everyone! My name’s Matt Oliva and I’m one of the two Photo Archive interns at the Museum this summer. I’m a student at Maryland Institute College of Art where I’m majoring in Art History and Photography.

One of the major projects I have been working on this summer is cataloging and digitizing the Hendler’s Ice Cream Company photography collection. Hendler’s ice cream company was a successful business and household name in Baltimore for fifty years. Their large plant and headquarters is actually only about a block from the museum that acquired their photograph collection.

If there’s one thing I’ve noticed in the time I’ve spent working with the Hendler’s collection, it’s that the company liked to document their advertisements. You could even say that they were obsessive about it, given the hundreds of photographs exclusively of the billboards they put up around Baltimore City, as well as those of other local companies.

These images are really interesting if you’re like me and fascinated by vintage advertising art and slogans. While these aren’t quite the flashy, famous things that you’ll see in an episode of Mad Men, they’re great examples of how products were sold in the first few decades of the last century.

The billboards are amazing objects themselves; giant, hand-painted images of people and food done decades before ads of this size could be mass produced. The slogans are often rather humorous to modern eyes, particularly those like “not a dessert, a full meal,” “full of fruit, sugar and cream,” and “have a plate a day,” which seem to allude to the healthy nature of ice cream.

Another interesting facet of the Hendler’s advertising photographs is the way they rather accidentally documented the neighborhoods and shop windows of early twentieth century Baltimore. By hiring professional photographers to document their advertisements on the sides of buildings or displays in store windows, the Hendler’s company also created a record of the everyday side of the city. Most of the buildings, businesses and even blocks pictured in these images have changed so completely in the last eighty of so years as to be unrecognizable. These pharmacies and soda fountains were unremarkable, common features of the city one upon a time, and would have probably been lost to progress without Hendler’s.